IK WORKING BASIS 



WALLACE N. STEARNS 




LIBRARY OF KELIGIOUS THOUGHT 



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A WORKING BASIS 



AND OTHER ESSAYS 



BY 



WALLACE N. STEARNS 




BOSTON: THE GORHAM PRESS 

TORONTO : THE COPP CLARK CO., Limited 



Copyright, 19x4, by Wallace N. Stearns 



All Rights Reserved 



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The Gorham Press, Boston, U. S. A. 



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NOV -7 1914 

0)C!,A3S7409 



TO THE 
MEMORY OF MY MOTHER 



PREFACE 

IN common with my fellows in the teach- 
ing profession, it has been my duty to 
endeavor in simplest terms to answer 
certain inquiries, to the end that inquir- 
ing minds might gain some approach to what 
are really the greatest problems in the stu- 
dent life. 

If these efforts help some one to a footing 
on the pathway that leads to more serious ef- 
fort and stimulate a desire for further in- 
quiry, we are content. 



'7 have no quarrel with theology ; I know 
none to quarrel with. What is beyond life's 
spectrum is a mystery to me, I do not know 
much of the ultra red or ultra violet either, 
except that there is power and force and wis- 
dom existing there. But the play of colors he- 
tween, with its high lights and its dark lines, 
I do know a little of, and I love it — just as I 
love our ocean down here, with its depths, its 
strength and its dangers, its colors and moods, 
its icy mountains, its trackless wastes, and yet 
withal its snug harbors and sheltering islands 
and warm land breezes.'^ 

Grenfell. 



CONTENTS 

Page 

I A Working Basis 1 1 

II On Reconciliation 17 

III On Immortality 31 

IV On Conscience 45 

V On the Reasonableness of 

Prayer 53 

VI On the Seat of Authority in Re- 
ligion 63 

VII On the Person of Christ 73 

VIII On Progressive Revelation.... 83 

IX On Faith and Science 97 



A WORKING BASIS 

^^JVhen that which is perfect is come that 
which is in part shall he done away!^ 

— Paul. 



A WORKING BASIS 

THE only thing constant in this 
world is change. What was here 
yesterday is not here today and 
what is here today will be gone to- 
morrow. Change is the law of progress, the 
assurance of life. Rest is stagnation, death. 
The only difference between a rut and a grave 
is one of depth. Uniformity, monotony, fix- 
ity, — this would be an impossible world. 

That our thinking conforms to this law 
need not be cause for alarm. Changing opin- 
ion proclaims larger wisdom, a more intelli- 
gent hold on the verities. It is not truth that 
changes, but our vision of the truth, our ap- 
prehension of that which we have not com- 
prehended. The distant view toward which 
we have travelled changes at each step or, 
better, our conception of it constantly approx- 
imates to the reality. 

II 



12 A WORKING BASIS 

What is true of the individual mind is true 
of the race. For a generation at a time 
thought has seemed to stand dormant, appar- 
ently content with what had been achieved. 
Again as if by an upheaval, criticism, at times 
destructive, has wrought havoc with tradi- 
tion, and mind like an unwilling mariner has 
set out in quest of a new haven. Such crises 
have often been the heralds or even the con- 
comitants of periods of political and social 
stress. But despite temporary distress, such 
experiences have wrought for better times. 
The checkered and often disastrous career of 
Greek philosophy, for example, helped to pre- 
pare the way for Christian thinking, and we 
are only just beginning to learn the debt we 
owe. 

The query arises, what are we to do while 
we are thus painfully approaching the truth, 
which is still so far away and so far from at- 
tainment? We must establish a working basis. 
The carpenter in the construction of a build- 



A WORKING BASIS 13 

ing erects a structure roughly conforming to 
the plan. This is not permanent, but for the 
time being. It is not the building but a scaf- 
fold. It is the growing platform on which 
the workmen may stand as they build. The 
man of science constructs as well as he can 
from the partial data at hand a working hypo- 
thesis. No one knows better than he the tran- 
sient nature of the theory formulated, no one 
holds it with a greater readiness to discard a 
working hypothesis when discovery reveals its 
further futility. It was a working basis, and 
for the time being served as a point of ref- 
erence. Growing knowledge compels 
changes in this working basis. Theories like 
text-books have their day and disappear. 

So far from giving occasion for alarm 
there is cause for gratitude. The honest 
mind need not fear, but rather move confi- 
dently forward. It is not dissatisfaction but 
unsatisfaction. There is no quarrel with the 
old, simply a longing to keep pace with the 



14 A WORKING BASIS 

present. 

The thinking mind should beware, how- 
ever, lest a working hypothesis become a defi- 
nition. A definition ceases to be true as soon 
as framed. That which was defined has gone 
on, changing ever into something apparently 
new; the definition remains cold, lifeless, in- 
ert, changeless. Too many think they are 
holding to an old faith when they are holding 
only to a time-honored definition. 

We should seek rather illustrations. A 
statement even of fact is but an illustration 
whereby we convey our understanding for the 
time being. With our approximation to real- 
ity the definition becomes a yoke on our necks 
rather than a help : if viewed as illustrations 
merely, our statements become what they 
ought to be and really are, working bases. 



ON RECONCILIATION 

'^For God was in Christ reconciling the 
world to Himself J' —Paul. 



ON RECONCILIATION 

SOME truths are imbedded deep in the 
human consciousness. They are older 
than the Old and New Testaments, 
they are as broad and deep as the 
Eternal. Of such is religion, There never 
has been a race or an age that did not recog- 
nize, though crudely, the claims of religion. 
The occasional revulsions of men have been 
offset by counter movements, and by a deep- 
er hold upon what had been for a time re- 
pudiated. Theologies have changed, dogmas 
have been abandoned, but faith and religion 
have continued. As religion is the deepest 
and strongest of the emotions, so, naturally, 
men have been conservative in changing re- 
ligious opinions and their conservatism here- 
in may be evidence of the intense reality of 
religion rather than indication of mere ob- 
stinacy. 

17 



1 8 A WORKING BASIS 

Fundamental in religion are the ideas of a 
supreme being, of man's relation to that be- 
ing, of the sundering of that relation, of 
man's guilt therefor, and of a desire for re- 
storation or renewal. Here, as ever, we must 
forbear definitions and be content with pic- 
tures or illustrations. These basal concep- 
tions are too deep for hard and fast terms, 
for the rigor and vigor of logic. 

Judaism, together with other cults, held to 
these beliefs, and the pious Jew sought a me- 
dium for expression. Men sought for that 
figure which most fully and adequately con- 
veyed the full meaning and significance. 
Whatever may have been the origin of the 
rite, the Jews were wont to offer as a sacrifice 
the choicest of their herds and flocks. The 
best they had was none too good, and no less 
than this was demanded by the Law. Chris- 
tianity born as it was out of Judaism naturally 
availed itself of Jewish imagery and form. In 
seeking for language, for pictures that could 



ON RECONCILIATION 19 

express the mission and work of Jesus, the 
early Christians found what they sought in 
the sacrificial system of Judaism. Jesus was 
represented as the Sacrifice, the lamb that was 
slain. That is, what the lamb had typified 
under the old system, that did Jesus repre- 
sent under the new, mediation between God 
and man. This was not a definition, not even 
an adequate expression ; it was only a picture, 
a symbol, a type, — transient but suitable for 
the time. 

Christianity passed to the western world. 
The new auditors were not Jews but Gentiles, 
the larger Graeco-Roman world. The early 
preachers now cast about for a language 
wherewith to convey their message, language 
that would be understood by those to whom 
the message had now come. 

Greek philosophy during the years had not 
been idle. They had sought to solve the prob- 
lem of human destiny and in their search had 
hit upon the idea of a supreme being. But be- 



20 A WORKING BASIS 

tween this being, whom they had made trans- 
cendant, and man, stood an impassible chasm. 
The fatality of the Greek thought was dual- 
ism. In endeavoring to mediate so as to 
avoid this dualism they brought in something 
which, like the deus ex machina of their 
drama, should arbitrarily cut the knot. As- 
suming that from the supreme being there 
emanated potencies or forces, it was by means 
of these that the god (or God) worked upon 
and influenced the world without being di- 
rectly an agent or suffering contamination. 
These assembled potencies the Greeks termed 
Logos. Here was the Christians' hope, here 
was a symbol, an illustration — though not a 
definition— -of the mission and work of Jesus. 
The fourth gospel opens with this figure, ''In 
the beginning was the Logos." What Greek 
philosophers had sought, that Christianity 
taught — a mediator, and this not an abstract 
principle but a living personality. 

Were Jesus to come to our land and age — 



ON RECONCILIATION 21 

and were they to seek for an illustration of 
the fulness of Jesus' mission and of his abso- 
lute devotion to that mission, they would 
search for some figure familiar to us, drawn 
from the life about us. Possibly no better 
picture could be found than that of the Mis- 
sionary, who in obedience to a conviction of 
duty leaves home, friends, future, comfort, 
even the bare necessities of life and in the 
midst of perils from a deadly climate, wild 
beasts, venomous serpents, and fierce canni- 
bals seeks to call men back to God. Finally, 
it may be, he dies at the hands of the savages 
he sought to save. This is not a definition, 
but perhaps no better example can be found in 
our modern life of the fulness and earnestness 
of Jesus' mission. 

From the mediaeval conception has come 
down the word ''atonement." From Jerome 
to the Reformation the Vulgate ruled the 
Western Church. In this translation occurs 
the word ''poenitentia," penance, of which 



22 A WORKING BASIS 

the base is the word ''poena," i. e. punishment, 
expiation. In the old English version oc- 
curred the word ''atonement," which word 
also came to convey the sense of expiation, of 
removing the burden of the guilt by penance 
or suffering. But if we trace this word back 
to its source, we find it not the trisyllable, a- 
tone-ment, but in reality a compound word, 
thus, at-one-ment, i. e. a state of harmony or 
of reconciliation. 

We find additional light in an experience 
of Luther. Luther had sought in the Witten- 
berg library for further light. In a copy of 
the Greek Testament he looked up the crucial 
passages and there found not the Latin idea 
of penance but the Greek word "Metanoia," 
change of mind, change of purpose. Here, 
then, was the solution. The Christian life 
meant a new, a changed life, a "right-about- 
face" in conduct. This was the coming to 
birth in Luther's mind of the new order, and 
the religious reformation in Germany really 



ON RECONCILIATION 23 

began. 

It would be interesting to know whether 
Jesus uttered on this problem any word that 
will bring simplicity. This we find in the 
three parables of the lost articles, — the lost 
coin, the lost sheep and the lost son. These 
three stories, each an advance on the preced- 
ing, bear a common message, but by reason 
of their varied selection appeal to a larger 
circle and by reason of their common teach- 
ing enforce the lesson taught. 

A certain sheik had two sons. As was le- 
gally his privilege the younger son asked for a 
division of the estate. With misgivings the 
father complied, and the boy now in posses- 
sion started out to achieve his fortune. At 
the outset all went well. The hearty, easy- 
going, rich young man found plenty of 
friends — such friends, most of them, as are al- 
ways ready to gather like buzzards wherever 
there is promise of selfish advantage. Finally, 
hard times came. It may be that famine, 



24 A WORKING BASIS 

drought, a raid of brigands, or any of the 
misfortunes to which Oriental life is subject, 
was added to profligacy. The rich young 
man went broke. Shabby clothing banned his 
erstwhile friends, and gaunt hunger drove 
him out to find work. He, the son of a leader 
of Israel, must now seek work, and he found 
it at the hand of a Gentile drover, and the 
man he despised for his race, sent the youth to 
tend swine, the beast among animals most 
held in abhorrence by the Jew. But the rich 
young man had no trade or profession, no 
money, no friends. He accepted the job. It 
was poor hire. He could not earn enough to 
eat, and his clothing ill in keeping with his 
work grew each day more shabby. Having 
ample time and no company he mused. Mem- 
ory stayed with him. He recalled the picture 
of his happy life in his father's home. At 
last in his want and misery he resolved to go 
home and ask his father for work, for, said 
he, my father's hired men have enough and 



ON RECONCILIATION 25 

to spare. As he neared the old home and fa- 
miliar landmarks met his eye, the returning 
prodigal began to plan for the meeting. Even 
his plea was a part of his concern : '^Father, I 
have sinned against heaven and in thy sight. 
I am no more worthy to be called thy son: 
make me as one of thy hired servants." 

But Providence had planned otherwise. In 
the gateway of the old homestead for many 
a day the father had sat, as was the custom in 
Israel, to receive the greetings of the passers- 
by and to pass in judgment on such disputes 
as might be brought before him. And for 
many a day he had been thinking of that son 
and how it fared with him. His own experi- 
ence had taught him the possible exigencies 
of life and he may well have divined the boy's 
lot. No doubt, many a homeless wanderer 
enjoyed hospitality at the old father's hand in 
memory of the boy and with a father's prayer 
that if in want the boy might find favor in 
some one's eyes. 1 



26 A WORKING BASIS 

At last the boy is nearing home. The hour 
for the meeting is drawing near. Fearful of 
the reception, the boy hesitates. The father 
catches sight of the approaching figure. The 
halting confession is checked by the father's 
greetings : "This is my son who was lost, and 
is found; who was dead and, is alive again." 
The best the house afforded was none too 
good. The protest of the elder brother gives 
a finishing touch to the picture. ''All that I 
have is thine." Forgiveness could not re- 
store squandered health or wealth, but for- 
giveness is a reality. 

There is no angry father, no penance. The 
son sins and as a result suffers : he repents and 
returns. The father hopes, expects, awaits, 
forgives, and receives again a wayward but 
repentant boy. Even in his sin he was constant- 
ly an object of his father's love and neither 
adversity nor his own unworthiness could 
take him out of the family. "This, my son 
was dead, and is alive again ; he was lost, and 



ON RECONCILIATION 27 

IS found." 

Similarly the scientist with wealth of learn- 
ing, the reward of his efforts now well before 
him, turns aside from glowing prospects and 
a glowing career, to devote himself to determ- 
ining the germ of some fell disease, to 
die, it may be, a victim of that same disease. 
The spirit of the Nazarene inspired them all, 
and all afforded a spectacle of self-sacrificing 
devotion. 

Throughout change and divers interpreta- 
tions fact abides. Sin, or whatever it may be, 
is destroying. The path of the regenerate is 
the same back-track, and the earlier the trans- 
formation, the larger the margin of life and 
the positive result to be achieved. Far better, 
however, than a life redeemed is a life pre- 
served from its very inception from whatever 
debases. This, however, is an ideal. We 
are all but miniatures of what we might have 
been. 



ON IMMORTALITY 

^^Hence in a season of calm weather 

Though inland far we be, 
Our souls have sight of that immortal 

Which brought us hither, 
Can in a moment travel thither, 
And see the children sport upon the shore, 
And hear the mighty waves rolling evermore.'^ 

— Wordsworth. 

^^When that zvhich drew from out the 
boundless deep turns again home,'^ 

— Tennyson. 

^^As for life hereafter, I know little or 
nothing about it; but that is not of any great 
importance, because I want it, whatever it is.^^ 

— Grenfell. 



ON IMMORTALITY 

PROBABLY no questions have more 
generally engaged man's mind, 
caused deeper concern or inspired 
with greater hope than those that have 
to do with his destiny and with what may yet 
await him after that great change we call 
death. '*If a mighty man die, will he live 
again?" queries Israel's sage. ^What is life?" 
asks the Saxon king. 'Tife," answers the 
wise man, \*is as when a sparrow flits from the 
cold into the light and warmth of the room 
but for a moment, and out again into the 
storm." And the Apostle, seeking to com- 
fort the baffled Corinthians, says, ^^That 
which thou sowest is not quickened except it 
die." 

It is just to inquire first into the nature 
of what we are seeking and to make sure 
of a few fundamental propositions. It is 

31 



32 A WORKING BASIS 

crude to think of body and soul as separate 
entities : they are not to be thought of in their 
separateness. Physical body is not a recepta- 
cle nor is soul something to be contained. Life 
is the manifestation of personality, which me- 
dium may change with conditions and envi- 
ronment. Life is the manifestation of self, of 
an individual personality under forms adapt- 
ed to existing needs. Body and soul, space 
and time are convenient terms like pounds 
and dollars, suited to our finite convenience, 
for the barter of our minds. Physical death is 
not the terminal of our existence anymore than 
is day or night: it is not a finality but a change 
in mode. This corruptible must put on incor- 
ruption, i. e. what is immortal must become 
clothed in deathlessness, — which is only 
picturing forth of the change in nature under 
the likeness of changed apparel and the re- 
sulting change in appearance. Eternal life, 
then, is the persistence and identity of the in- 
dividual self. 



ON IMMORTALITY 33 

Whence, then, the idea of a physical resur- 
rection in Christianity. Judaism looked for- 
ward to a golden age, ^'Ha-Olam Hab-ba." 
This restored state was practically a revival 
under divine guidance of the glory of the an- 
cient kingdom and that, too, within the 
bounds of the homeland. The pious Jew, 
though he died in foreign lands, was thus re- 
stored to the land of his fathers. Such a res- 
urrection was physical, and that by virtue of 
the possession of a physical body. Born of 
Jewish parentage, swaddled in the garb of 
Jewish thinking, Christianity could not whol- 
ly escape Jewish influence. Even before the 
close of the first century Christian thought 
was clarifying itself. The ''grain of wheat" 
that fell into the ground was the symbol ot 
the advanced thinking of the early Church, 
remaining in the ground yet appearing above 
transformed and multiplied. Leaders of the 
Christian community were catching a new 
glimpse of the truth — not of resurrection but 



34 A WORKING BASIS 

of immortality. 

With this view of the problem it is in place 
to inquire into the nature of the evidence. 
Truth may be demonstrable, as scientific or 
mathematical, or cumulative and probable. 
Even demonstrable proof is an uncertain 
quantity. Science is a statement of phenom- 
ena as they appear to us: the increased wis- 
dom of to-morrow will render different the 
things which now appear, and our apprehen- 
sions of facts, of realities, will need to give 
place to a larger and more nearly perfect un- 
derstanding of things. Much of our knowl- 
edge, our certainty, rests on probable proof. 
There is a probability of events, to doubt 
which would do violence to our better selves. 
Should one object that in matters of so great 
moment as religion there must be more, and 
more convincing, argument, let such a one 
bear in mind that it does not necessarily fol- 
low that the weightier subject demands more 
evidence but rather the more jealous consid- 



ON IMMORTALITY 35 

eration and more scrupulous use of the evi- 
dence we have. 

Faith is at the basis of all evidence, at the 
foundation of every phase of life. And faith 
is reasonable. It is not blind credence, but 
living up to the best that is in us. The as- 
tronomer who night after night turns his 
glass to that quarter of the heavens where 
signs indicate the presence of an unknown 
star, and the navigator turning the prow of 
his vessel westward to lands never seen but 
to which he is urged by reasons to him in- 
controvertible, are both acting on faith. Con- 
fidence, on which commerce and trade are 
founded, is only a mode of faith. 

Demonstrable proof is still unavailable. 
Science has no direct proof to offer. Psychol- 
ogy has failed to find a soul. Life seems in- 
terrelated with organism, intelligence with 
complexity of organization, and weakness and 
mental decay with arrested growth or even 
the stoppage of the blood to brain and the 



36 A WORKING BASIS 

higher nerve centres. However, this may be 
an accompaniment: the complex may not 
cause the higher intellectuality. No avenue 
has been found to a spirit-world: mediums 
have not yet convinced: death-bed scenes 
comfort but do not prove nor indeed are they 
always consistent. Again, the '^permanence 
of species" does not preserve the individual, 
which transient emerges from and is again 
merged in the universal. 

The silence of science is not to be construed 
as a negative argument. Immortality is not 
a datum of the sensuous world: it lies without 
the realm of material things. And at all events 
the opposite, the death of soul, is not and can- 
not be proved. ''I believe in the Immortality 
of the soul," says John Fiske, ''not in the 
sense in which I believe in the demonstrable 
truths of science, but as a supreme act of 
faith in the reasonableness of God's work." 

But science has found a hint which like a 
broken strand suggests things hereafter. Evo- 



ON IMMORTALITY 37 

lution has found in men the acme of creation 
gradually becoming more perfect. On the 
brink of the grave we ask, Is this all? Is life 
a shattered pillar to crumble to dust? Has 
creative purpose wrought thus far only to be 
overwhelmed with defeat? Progress so glor- 
iously begun under natural laws must find its 
continuity in the spiritual world. Evolution 
suggests something more to be evolved. We 
leave the world of demonstrable truth with a 
promising hint and without finding an argu- 
ment against our craving for immortality. 
The changing character of science, the enlarg- 
ing boundaries, may yet yield evidence on sub- 
jects thus far beyond its ken. 

Consensus of opinion has ever been in fav- 
or of the immortality of the soul. The fact 
that erroneous doctrines endure is evidence of 
a morsel of truth that has somewhere entered 
into their composition. All tribes and peoples 
have held in some form or other to the per- 
petuity of the self. The shadowy dream- 



38 A WORKING BASIS 

world of the savage where he roams and 
hunts with his companions and friends long 
dead; the Hindoo's Nirvana that merged in- 
dividuals into the whole and thus preserved 
the species though not the units; the fathom- 
less mystery of Egypt with the huge pyramids 
embellished within with painted fancies; the 
shadowy Sheol of the Hebrews; and the 
teachings of Greece from the uncertain realm 
of Hades to the Elysian fields of Homer, all 
attest the universality and intensity of a con- 
viction which will not be gainsaid. 

Christianity combined the mystic splendor 
of Greek speculation with the moral signifi- 
cance of the Jewish system. It was Chris- 
tianity that first gave real moral significance 
to the thought. The records that underlie 
the story of Jesus are credible. The features 
that seem foreign to our Western way 
of thinking are the ear-marks of historicity 
certifying to the professed dates and habitat 
of the writings. They represent the recog- 



ON IMMORTALITY 39 

nized and acknowledged characteristics of the 
great literary group of which they are a part. 
In the details we are not concerned. The 
great and indeed only essential is this, that a 
scattered, hiding, disheartened band of fugi- 
tives came to a conviction, became aware of 
the continued existence and identity — it mat- 
ters not in what form — of their fallen leader. 
These same fugitives were transformed by 
their experience into a conquering force, 
which, within three centuries, in an era of cul- 
ture, learning, and acute philosophical specu- 
lation, established a recognized religion for 
the civilized world. Years after the event 
Paul could say, ''He was seen by upward of 
five hundred at once, many of whom are alive 
to this day." If ever PauPs statement was 
challenged, the shrewdest and bitterest of the 
opponents of Christianity failed to take 
note of it. 

A rational philosophical basis is possible. 
''That w^ill last forever which on account of 



40 A WORKING BASIS 

its excellence and its spirit must be an abiding 
part of the universe; what lacks that preserv- 
ing worth will perish." *^My life as a casual 
system of physical and psychical processes, 
which lies spread out in time between the 
dates of my birth and of my death, will come 
to an end with my last breath; to continue it, 
to make it go on till the earth falls into the 
sun, or a billion times longer, would be with- 
out any value, as that kind of life which is 
nothing but the mechanical occurrence of phy- 
siological and psychological phenomena has 
as such no ultimate value for me or for you 
or for anyone at any time . But my real life 
as a system of interrelated will-attitudes has 
nothing before or after, because it is beyond 
time. It is independent of birth and death, 
because it cannot be related to the biological 
events ; it is born and will not die ; it is immor- 
tal; all possible thinkable time is enclosed in 
it; it is eternal." 

Deeper than philosophy even is the aggre- 



ON IMMORTALITY 41 

gate force of human desire, expectancy, and 
longing, which very desire is prophetic. 
There is a validity of human instinct. There 
is a value, legitimacy in the Poet's vision, in 
the realm of imagination, — as legitimate as 
the thinking of the scientist. The calm trust, 
too, with which the good man faces death 
bears conviction. There is no boast; there 
may be no visions; there may be even a dread 
of change, a longing for physical life, but 
there is a calm trust born of conviction. These 
are all as legitimate as the province of num- 
bers or the realm of scientific occurrence. He 
who is so widely versed in his own field as to 
have described its borders, says naught 
against worlds into which his own studies 
have not taken him. At most he is silent. 

All human effort points to immortality. Im- 
mortality is essential to the complete under- 
standing of human life: the moral order of 
the universe demands it. In every age live a 
few prophetic spirits, yet even these cannot 



42 A WORKING BASIS 

fully impart themselves. Coleridge could not 
recall his verses: Beethoven could not express 
the harmonies he had heard. Indeed we all 
see and feel what we can never realize in this 
world; we have our prophetic moments, high 
levels on which we here live only as transients. 
Hopes and aspirations unrealized here, and 
choice spirits cut off before their time must 
find their fullest meaning in the Hereafter. 

Science leaves us a hopeful suggestion; his- 
tory stoutly affirms; philosophy declares its 
reasonableness, and ethics the necessity of a 
satisfaction for this craving — the reality of 
immortality. 

Nor is it a new state to be entered into in 
connection with that phenomenon called phy- 
sical death. He who is in the way is as im- 
mortal now as any change could make him. 
Eternal life may begin here, and here may be 
only the forecourt of hereafter. 



ON CONSCIENCE 

^^The Spirit of Alan is the lamp of Yahweh, 
Searching! all the chambers of the SoulJ^ 

— Psalms, 

'^I have considered my ways 
And turned unto Thy testimonies.^^ 

— Proverbs. 



ON CONSCIENCE 

THESE words of the Sage, 'Tamp 
of Yahweh," have in the popular 
mind become identified with the 
conscience of man. Conscience has 
come to be a tangible somewhat serving as a 
sort of oracle wherefrom responses may be 
elicited as to the ordering of life. The lan- 
guage, an illustration merely, has been mis- 
taken for a definition. Yet man is an integer. 
The old terms, intellect, sensibilities, will, are 
no longer to be tolerated even as fictions. And 
when terms are mistaken for verities confu- 
sion reigns. 

The word ^'Conscience" bears on the face 
of it the true meaning. There is implied a 
knowledge of one's self, a sense of one's mor- 
al whereabouts. In practical wise Conscience 
is not an entity but a mode of action. Con- 
sidered as a mode of conduct, three steps seem 

45 



46 A WORKING BASIS 

determinable, — judgment, decision, action. 

A prerequisite to moral action is a judg- 
ment, and prerequisite to judgment is knowl- 
edge. A moral act based on a judgment at- 
tained through incorrect information must of 
necessity be faulty however pure the intent. 
Consequences unforseen, erroneous conclu- 
sions may easily work harm. Narrow vision, 
prejudice, indiscretion, impulsiveness, even 
passion may distort judgment. Only evil can 
result. The fault here is not moral: it is of 
the intellect. However, it is none the less a 
fault, and as such injurious. Conscience, what- 
ever else it may be, is moral and not culpable 
for intellectual failings. The step just de- 
scribed is not moral, hence the issue is not 
with conscience. 

Again, a judgment without a decision is at 
best a passive thing. Decision may rest on 
one or more of several grounds, as personal 
advantage, sense of justice, regard for others. 
We verge here toward the moral rather than 



ON CONSCIENCE 47 

toward the intellectual. Decision is the pow- 
er to choose an alternative, to adopt a mode 
of action. If, however, the will be to adopt 
a procedure seemingly right but based on evi- 
dence actually insufficient or erroneous, harm 
may result, but there can be no culpability, for 
culpability implies wilful rejection of a right 
and acceptance of a motive known to be 
wrong, and the motive here is presumably 
right. 

Further, an action is a realized decision 
and involves determination and the use of en- 
ergy. But culpability does not rest here : the 
moral phase rests on the underlying decision 
determining the action. Underlying infor- 
mation may be wrong, action may unwittingly 
be ill-timed, but culpability comes in the ren- 
dering of a wrong decision against available 
knowledge and wisdom. Conscience, finally, 
is not an entity, nor anything separate. It 
rests if correct on information, the intellect- 
ual; on decision, the will; and on purity of 



48 A WORKING BASIS 

motive, the moral nature. And these three 
are themselves not separate and apart but 
phases. 

Conscience is the result of long growth and 
development, a matter of evolution. Once, 
long ago, there was no established body of 
ethics, no standards of procedure. Each did 
what was right in his own eyes : was a law to 
himself. Gradually there arose a settled cus- 
tom. A consensus of opinion was evolved, 
and along lines of conduct individuals were 
guided, or at least influenced, by precedent. 
In time society came to have an ethical code. 
Here is the germ of public opinion, of public 
conscience. To this each generation in turn 
adds an increment to the common ethical con- 
sciousness. 

To each generation come new problems, 
new situations, occasions for new judgments. 
Resting on what has been handed down by 
those who have gone before, each generation 
works out current problems, forms new de- 



ON CONSCIENCE 49 

terminations, and in turn hands on its stand- 
ards to succeeding times. As in nature so in 
morals there are reversals to earlier types or 
forms, but the trend is in general forward. 

The too widely prevalent popular notion 
of conscience traces back ultimately to a de- 
sire to be relieved of personal moral responsi- 
bility, to cast lots, to have the word of an ora- 
cle, to hear a ^'do this" or *'thou shalt not." 
The church once divided on the question of 
human infallibility. Those who protested 
sought refuge in an appeal to an infallible 
book. Today there are many and diverse 
opinions, but we, like children, still wish to 
be led. 

Nor has discussion left us empty-handed. 
Conscience though not a separate entity is still 
real — it is an eternal alertness. There are 
no compartments, the mind is a unit, person- 
ality is an integer. When comes the time of 
decision, the process is of a single, unitary 
agent — gathering and weighing information; 



50 A WORKING BASIS 

determinating the wiser, safer policy; and 
choosing — and the last stage marks the cli- 
max while resting upon the other two. And 
yet all three are but phases of one, the per- 
son, the self. On this last as the only existent 
factor in the problem must rest the moral re- 
sponsibility. 



ON THE REASONABLENESS OF 
PRAYER 

'^ There be problems in Heaven and in 
earth undreamed of in your philosophy, Ho- 
ratio. '' — Shakespeare. 

*^Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask 
amiss, that ye may spend it in your pleasures.'^ 

— Letter of James. 

'The Mount of Transfiguration is the 
place of prayer : the object of prayer is prepa- 
ration for service! 

^'Ein einziger, dankbarer Gedanke gen 
Himmel ist das volkommenste GebetF^ 

— Lessing. 



ON THE REASONABLENESS OF 
PRAYER 

HOW can prayer change the proce- 
dure of irrevocable law? How 
can the petition of an individual 
alter the destiny of society? Why 
should man pray to a God who knows better 
than we, what to give, and who is even more 
ready to give than we to ask? 

It is possible, by the way, to have too ex- 
alted a conception of Law. Too apt are we 
to endow a word with arms, legs, brain, and 
breath of life and to own it as our master. 
Truth is that what we have termed Law has 
no existence whatever, never caused anything 
nor wrought any work, and that it outdoes 
Proteus in variability. A law is simply a 
description, an expression of our experience 
up to date, the summing up of our observa- 
tion of some particular class or group of 

53 



54 A WORKING BASIS 

phenomena. To-morrow may add to the 
number of phenomena or complications to the 
process. Thus Evolution has been modified 
by Mutation, and the history of this great 
hypothesis has marked by its changes the de- 
velopment of scientific thinking in the field of 
biological science. 

It is possible we miss the true significance 
of prayer. To one, prayer is a means of prying 
open the windows of heaven; to another, a 
period of ecstasy; to another, the enrichment 
of the supplicant by putting him en rapport 
with the object of his adoration. In the form 
Jesus taught his disciples there is clearly none 
of the first; the prayer does not ascend to the 
heights of the second; and there is a this- 
worldness about it that all but excludes it 
from the third: 

I — ^Adoration and thanksgiving. 

2 — Divine supremacy. 

3 — Daily needs. 

4 — Forgiveness. 



REASONABLENESS OF PRAYER 55 

5 — Deliverance. 

It is clear that the established order of phe- 
nomena which we call law cannot be swerved, 
for the mind that guides the world shaped al- 
so the lines along which all things move. To 
swerve might involve catastrophe. What may 
seem the suspension of law is rather a remind- 
er that what we had come to regard as a law 
was founded on too narrow observation. We 
had apprehended but not comprehended. Ad- 
ditional embarrassment arises when men 
equally sincere seek conflicting solutions. 
Thus how could even infinite wisdom answer 
the petitions that went up from North and 
South for the outcome of the Civil War? 
Lincoln well said that neither prayer was 
fully answered and that the outcome was not 
entirely the one sought by any. We have 
from the standpoint of the individual sought 
the destinies of the many. Dwarfed by sel- 
fish desire, distorted by our partial view-point, 
our prayers, many of them, would wreck the 



56 A WORKING BASIS 

world instead of promoting it. The broad 
view of the game is not the one gained by the 
small boy looking through a hole in the fence. 

From the foothills of finity there is no 
chance of viewing the broad vistas to be seen 
from the mountain-peaks of the Infinite. All 
our notions of time, space, before and after, 
heights and depths, and the like, are purely 
accidentals of our finite existence, and to pro- 
ject them upon our conceptions of God and 
his Universe is like the thinking of the He- 
brew sage who conceived God as resting with 
the coming of night or walking abroad in the 
cool of the day or regretting action already 
taken. 

There is a reflex action in prayer that af- 
fects the subject in quite another way. We 
find a suggestion in the prayer that Jesus 
taught. A man's wealth rests not in the 
abundance of his goods but in the state of 
his mind. Contentment is more than wealth : 
enough more than abundance. Prayer places 



REASONABLENESS OF PRAYER 57 

the suppliant en rapport with the divine and 
makes his will one and at one with God. This 
is not Stoicism: it does not endure, it exalts 
and transforms. It helped the Apostle to 
say that **in whatever state he found himself, 
therewith he could be content." Longing to 
be with his churches he could yet make his 
misfortune the means for spreading the mes- 
sage to the Gentiles. 

This does not restrict prayer: it rather 
purifies. It does not rebuke zeal but rather 
heightens judgment. The ship enters the 
lock. The passenger on deck sees about him 
only the towering walls that shut him in. The 
boiling waters fill the chasm, the ship rises 
within its walls and the passenger gladly sees 
things anew from a higher standpoint and 
with enlarged horizon. The man with his 
elevation has been put in touch with a new 
world.' Chastened prayer, the outpouring of 
soul-life born of experience, whether spoken 
or unexpressed, is, whatever else it may be, 



58 A WORKING BASIS 

the exaltation of man till he is in touch with 
the Eternal. It took Israel long to realize 
that Yahweh did not dwell on Zion, that the 
altar with its burden of victims was not the 
sine qua non of acceptable worship, that the 
litany of robed priests was not essential. The 
Christian church has never quite gotten away 
from the feeling that certain forms and sym- 
bols and signs were the only receptacles wor- 
thy to contain the precious word. Why is not 
the holy life, the pure thought, the noble as- 
piration, or the unselfish deed a prayer? And 
why may not life throughout be a season of 
prayer, and the brief intervals we are wont 
to call prayer times rather of formal com- 
munion unifying with the will of God that of 
the worshipper. But can petition change the 
established order? There is indubitable se- 
quence and sequacity in the universe about us. 
Yet to limit divine action to a single unchange- 
able procedure is to put bounds to infinity. 
Many things to my mind the inevitable and 



REASONABLENESS OF PRAYER 59 

the only are to a keener intellect but one 
among many. Where to my untutored vision 
no way appears, the trained eye sees a dozen 
paths. The skilled woodman threads his way 
through trackless forests and trails invisible. 
Logical thinking leads us to infinity: to limit 
infinity only contradicts our judgment. 

The real error is not one of philosophy but 
of ethics. Whence misfortune? Adversity 
and suffering often come only because of vio- 
lation of some sequence of cause and effect. 
Continuous gluttony and dissipation lead to 
disease and debility. God might provide an- 
other way out, but why should he ? We ought 
to pray rather that we be led from evil doing 
than to be protected from its consequences. 

Recognizing Divine power and the injus- 
tice of its use in any but an impartial way in 
answer to short-sighted human petition, we 
see the chief end of prayer in the rendering 
of man's will one with God, and in the mould- 
ing of man's conduct, rather than in satisfying 
his desires. 



ON THE SEAT OF AUTHORITY IN 
RELIGION 

"The Spirit Beareth Witness." 

— Paul. 



ON THE SEAT OF AUTHORITY IN 
RELIGION 

THE problem in hand must be clear- 
ly determined before being ex- 
plored. Within what bounds does 
the question lie, and along what 
lines are we to move in its solution? That 
religion is a factor in our thinking life seems 
evident, and the fact that prejudice, hatred, 
war, and persecution have been involved in 
its behalf, though directed by wrong motives, 
urges its reality. As to where we are to look 
for this ''Seat of Authority" in religion, the 
warrant for the religious sentiment, there is 
room for debate. 

We are traversing here an unknown land : 
the best we can do is by inference, following 
our best judgment. What is invisible we must 
undertake to state in terms of the visible. 
What we seek is by its nature unknowable 

63 



64 A WORKING BASIS 

save by inference. We do not see, we reason 
to conclusions. 

Human conduct may be viewed from with- 
out, inductively. Actions may be studied with 
reference to their results or consequences — 
those that eventuate well and those that re- 
sult ill. Further, the study on this side may 
be carried on historically, and present action 
may be guided by experience, experience of 
ourselves and of others. This is good but 
not sufficient. It may insure against relapse 
but cannot assure progress. There must have 
been a primary incentive, an original impulse 
to right action and thought. Whence and 
what this initiative? When attained, it is 
what we seek, the warrant for the religious 
impulse. We must distinguish here between 
the discernment of this incentive and its de- 
termination as right or wrong. The latter 
concerns our thought of conscience : the form- 
er concerns us here. 

Some have sought this principle in institu- 



AUTHORITY IN RELIGION 65 

tions, creeds, and in collections of sacred writ- 
ings. These attest the fact; are they cause or 
result? The wavering of the mercury be- 
speaks a varying temperature, but does not 
cause it. In a sense there is light though no 
eye were to see it. Even if there were no list- 
ening ear, the tree falling would produce 
sound, if sound be expressed in terms of air 
waves. But for eye and ear, if absent, there 
could not be either. Among all peoples there 
has been what may uncritically be termed re- 
ligious instinct. This has found concrete ex- 
pressions, but these expressions, whether sac- 
rifice or cathedral service, simple credo or 
elaborate body of literature, are fruit rather 
than root: they constitute a criterion of judg- 
ment and, collectively, a standard of relative 
merit among alternative or competing sys- 
tems. We do not find in them, however, the 
raison d'etre, the ^'Seat of Authority in Re- 
ligion." 

We leave the outer world, then, satisfied as 



66 A WORKING BASIS 

to the reality of what we are seeking, though 
fully aware that it is not something possessed 
of material existence. The much sought prin- 
ciple Cometh not by observation, it is within. 
Having gotten away from ideas of utility and 
conscience, and having determined on some 
principle within, we are left to set bounds to 
this our new field of search. Reason fails us 
as an avenue of approach, save in the exer- 
cise of judgment as to the sanity of our pro- 
cedure. We must enter the world of conjec- 
ture, or inference, proceeding not by a visible 
highway, but, as the sailor by the compass, by 
taking our bearings and making for a goal of 
whose existence we feel certain. And here we 
may observe that there is no conflict between 
reason and faith. These are not separate en- 
tities but phases of activity. Faith is loyalty 
to the best that is in us. It impels us to action 
in the direction given us by our best judgment. 
To walk toward a visible object is an act of 
faith in that it shows confidence in our senses. 



AUTHORITY IN RELIGION 67 

To set out for a goal beyond our vision in- 
volves a larger exercise of faith or confidence. 
To set out to explore a world so thoroughly 
unknown and intangible as that of pure 
thought, is a sublime act of confidence, as 
much above the former as the faith of Co- 
lumbus was greater than that of the mariner 
today with proved chart to hand. It is rea- 
son that weighs pros and cons and marks the 
course. Faith impels man to action along the 
line thus laid down. Abraham as an act of 
faith sojourned in the land of promise. The 
process of reasoning whereby he became an 
emigrant is not related in the Bible story. 

In its own field, then, faith is not only le- 
gitimate, it is absolutely indispensable. With- 
out faith in some form the wheels of trade 
stop, the activities of life cease, and the pro- 
cesses of the thought life are at an end. Yet 
there are perils in the exercise of faith. There 
is danger, first of all, from mysticism, unclear 
thinking. In one age and another Mystics 



68 A WORKING BASIS 

have helped progress. Despite seeming hazi- 
ness, though they may have seen but dimly, 
these pioneers were groping after something. 
Mysticism often has been a just recognition 
of the heart-life as over against barren 
domination of brain. But introspection, 
scrutiny of one's self, like one's intently 
gazing on some optical illusion, is 
apt to lose one in a hopeless maze. 
Nor can the bystander be dogmatic on the 
matter of personal experience. What he may 
not in any way perceive, as, for example, a 
coin in the closed hand, the possessor may be 
fully and rightly conscious of. The witness 
of the Spirit, that is the conviction of oneness 
with God, is not something tangible, never- 
theless it is a valid argument, not to be denied 
the holder so far as it concerns his own indi- 
vidual weal. 

The sum total of the world's consciousness 
here constitutes a valid argument for the prin- 
ciple in question. The world as a whole is 



AUTHORITY IN RELIGION 69 

not long deceived. Hunger implies food: 
hunger is for a purpose, and even famine does 
not invalidate the argument. The religious 
impulse is for a purpose, and no religion but 
has in it, despite any crudeness, the germ of 
right. Religions have ultimately triumphed, 
as history attests, by virtue of superior merit 
in themselves and by the sincere devotion of 
their votaries. 

Other evidence is cumulative, and on the 
principle of the summation of stimuli leads to 
sense of certainty. It is personal conviction, 
figuratively spoken of as a 'Voice within," an 
attitude of our personality toward the matter 
in question that constitutes our final court of 
appeal, which though not independent from, 
yet constitutes, as the key-stone in the arch, 
the final and convincing proof. 

The abiding self! Science teaches us of 
constant change that spares naught. Yet, de- 
spite this accepted fact, we feel a sense of 
sameness as over against all possibilities of 



70 A WORKING BASIS 

otherness — a sameness continuous through all. 
This we accept In all the pursuits of life and 
find that it works, that results follow. And 
in this same self abides that conviction that 
compels recognition though admitting the 
possibility of denial. The working basis 
changes : the working self abides. 



ON THE PERSON OF CHRIST 

'^Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast 
the words of eternal life.'^ 

Until I find a safer guide, a higher ideal 
concretely expressed, a life resting more fully 
on its merits, a force more vital in history, a 
teaching more simple and so more universal in 
its scope — until I find all this I shall follow 
the Nazarene. 



ON THE PERSON OF CHRIST 

THE fundamental problem in the 
Christian's thinking may be 
summed up in the query as to the 
person of Christ. The difficulty 
lies in the fact that the investigation crosses 
two worlds. Just as we are well on our way 
we are abruptly halted by the bars of the 
finite. By the old system of deductive reasoning 
we started — by assuming— with a supernat- 
ural Being, duly personified and capitalized, 
which we accepted wholly on faith. This ma- 
jor premise having been granted all else fol- 
lowed. The difficulty here is that we assume 
what we set out to prove, and to a person not 
already convinced conviction does not neces- 
sarily follow. 

The truth is, the implications of the prob- 
lem pass beyond finite comprehension. We 
stand within the circle without and beyond 

73 



74 A WORKING BASIS 

which extends the mysteries of the unfath- 
omed world. From time to time the horizon 
recedes before some new discovery, neverthe- 
less there is still the unknown world which 
like the ancient ocean-stream hems in all 
known lands and for the present limits dis- 
covery. We can examine, collate, and arrive 
at conclusions. This is the scientific proce- 
dure, and only so can we here come to knowl- 
edge. 

The real value in this matter is not doctri- 
nal, but ethical and religious. The Christian 
world went to war for a diphthong, but 
whether ^'homoios^' or ^'homoiousios/'' can 
never be determined by finite minds nor does 
it matter whether it be so determined. As a 
matter of philosophical speculation it is well 
worth all the effort it costs to struggle with 
these problems. As a matter affecting the 
practical conduct of life these matters in no 
way concern us. Following the manner of 
the scientist, in questions baffling solution we 



ON THE PERSON OF CHRIST 75 

simply collect our unsolved puzzles for the 
time when a chance ray of light may point 
the way. We do not become pessimistic, nor 
do we give up the search, nor do we lose hold 
on faith in the ultimate outcome. 

For practical purposes it is not what pre- 
ceded the advent of the Christ that counts, 
but what followed in its wake. Questions of 
preexistence, procession, priority are good for 
speculation. Signs and wonders are not 
unique to Christianity nor did Jesus himself 
lay great stress on them. It is the ethical and 
religious content of Jesus' teaching that gives 
great and true significance. The setting is 
temporal, the symbolism belongs to a past 
age and to a people long since removed from 
their ancient conditions, — the husk is acci- 
dental, the truth set forth is eternal. The 
environment compels us not only to orient 
our thoughts: we must also Orientalize our- 
selves if we would understand the message 
aright. Thus wisely acted the earliest mis- 



76 A WORKING BASIS 

sionaries to the West when they changed the 
figure from the sacrificial lamb to that of Lo- 
gos, a shibboleth in the Greek philosophy of 
the time. 

Of the Jesus of history we have valid rec- 
ords, such as could be accepted by critical 
thinking apropos of other historical charac- 
ters, and in the life of the early church wit- 
nesses multiply rapidly. The earliest evidence 
is that of Paul. These letters were followed 
by the three so-called Synoptic Gospels, and 
by the historical book of Acts which has no 
footing except in the fact of Jesus' life and 
work. Later followed the fourth Gospel, a 
philosophical and interpretative rather than 
a historical treatise. All these documents so 
far from being formal apologetics or intend- 
ed for the general public, are strictly "inter 
nos" compositions for those already within 
the faith. This fact of their being uncon- 
scious historical material adds to their essen- 
tial value in these later times. 



ON THE PERSON OF CHRIST 77 

Christianity abides by virtue of what hap- 
pened after rather than from what preceded 
the event. The stories of the last forty days 
bear witness to some more than ordinary ex- 
perience, an experience, indeed, that trans- 
formed a band of trembling fugitives into a 
conquering force. Christianity enjoyed no ad- 
vantages under the empire. Greek religion, 
Greek philosophy, and the Oriental cults were 
all opposed to Christianity. The outlook for 
the followers of Mithras was for a time 
brighter than for the disciples of the Naza- 
rene. The Galilean won not by reason of any 
interference human or divine but by force of 
his superior merit. Religions have ever gone 
down before higher types. The survival of 
the fittest holds here as elsewhere. The his- 
tory of Christianity, despite the wrongs done 
in its name, is its great apologetic. Chris- 
tianity knows no national boundaries, nor is it 
responsible for importation of vices into 
heathen lands though the offenders may have 



78 A WORKING BASIS 

been citizens in Christian countries. 

The idea of immortality leads to the con- 
cluding question — ^Jesus as the Christ. Of 
the historic Jesus we are assured by a reason- 
able confidence in reliable records. Nor are 
we entitled by reason of the supreme import- 
ance of the matter to look for unusual and 
overwhelming evidence. Rather, it behooves 
us to give more earnest heed to the testimony 
now available. The question of the risen 
Christ is different. The story is told in 
Oriental, first century-style whose seeming 
crudities are the earmarks of its historicity. 
The fact remains. Again, Christianity en- 
tered a field wholly occupied, from mortal 
point of view enjoyed no favor or prestige, 
was rivaled by powerful and popular cults, 
and on its merit only, won its recognition. In 
the same way Christianity has held its own — 
because its basis is the most democratic, its 
procedure is the most simple, its ethics the 
most pure. The Galilean has won on his 



ON THE PERSON OF CHRIST 79 

merit. It is not to prophecy we turn, for 
what happened far transcends any prediction. 
Nor Is it to miracle, for miracles are by no 
means peculiar to Christian origins, indeed 
for spectacular effect the miracles of the Gos- 
pels seem tame in comparison. Christianity 
has transformed history, and repeated its 
wonderful work in millions of hearts and 
lives. Herein lies the marvel to be explained. 
Men are Christian not by peoples, countries, 
or groups, but by individuals. Christianity 
sent the missionary. The barrel of grog 
aboard the same steamer was sent by some 
other agency. Lands nominally christian 
have not given greater sins to India, China, 
or Africa : they have added to them. These 
crimes are chargeable not to Christianity but 
to men who in Christian lands yet denied the 
Christian code. And in judging the sins of 
the past we must ever keep in mind contem- 
porary standards of mortals and recognize in 
our thinking the evolution of an ethical code. 



8o A WORKING BASIS 

Christ is not an ancient form to shape or mis- 
shape our reason. We acknowledge Him 
as Master and follow Him for His merit and 
achievement. 



ON PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 

^Y/ the old lamps are dim and pale, 
The stars are shining still; 
If shadows gather in the vale, 
The sun is on the hill. 
Truth still abides, God is not dead. 
And though old views depart, 
A loftier temple domes our head, 
A larger hope our hearth 

^Beyond the printed page we seek Thee, 
Lordr 



ON PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 

THE reply of Jesus to his disciples, 
*^I have yet many things to say un- 
to you, but ye cannot bear them 
now,'' attests a great truth. Wheth- 
er to nation or to individual, truth comes 
slowly. This is necessarily so, not that truth 
is changeable but because mind must undergo 
a gradual accommodation to fit itself for cap- 
able recipiency of truth. 

The topic in question is larger than is al- 
lowed by the books. It is not a problem of 
Holy Scripture merely, but one that touches 
our intellectual and spiritual life on every 
side. As in other fields so in this, quarrels are 
largely over words rather than things. We 
may begin with Archbishop Trench's defini- 
tion: '*God's revelation of Himself is a draw- 
ing back of the veil or curtain which con- 
cealed Him from man; not man finding out 

83 



84 A WORKING BASIS 

God, but God discovering Himself to man." 
Though a familiar phrasing, this statement 
Is in a measure true and yet incomplete. Truth 
is not attained by the downward bending of 
realities, but by the elevation of the recipient. 
We need not become Pantheists to accept the 
doctrine of Divine Immanence and to see in 
every bush and stone and brook, in the lives 
and works of our fellows, as well as in a par- 
ticular body of writings, traces of the Infinite. 
We come to revelation by the unfolding of 
the mind : faith is the acceptance of and com- 
pliance with the light vouchsafed us, the ac- 
ceptance of the evidence most approved by 
our illumined judgment. We are ever being 
exalted to truth, so that truth is constantly be- 
ing viewed more and more in its reality, so 
that less and less we see men as trees walking. 
The Archbishop's distinction is of his own 
making rather than a real one. The inquiry 
as to special revelation is to be answered in 
the same way; the process is the same. 



PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 85 

We must first inquire of philosophy, the 
foundation of all sciences. Here we are on 
common ground, for whether or not we so 
will, we are all philosophers — good, bad or 
indifferent — for we are all concerned with the 
riddles of life. The history of philosophy is 
a history of mental progress. At times 
thought has seemed to stand still for a gener- 
ation or longer, and then within a life time ad- 
vance faster and farther than in a century 
previous. The several so-called clearing-up 
times, in Greek thought for example, were 
not death-throes but birth-struggles. What 
was a group of physical entities to the early 
physiologers, an *'ever becoming" to Heracli- 
tus, "nous" to Anaxagoras, was plunged into 
philosophic chaos by skeptic and sophist. But 
even thence thought rose again, phoenix-like. 
Following in the footsteps of his master, 
Plato found his hope in the world of Ideas 
and Aristotle's work was a practical applica- 
tion of that of Plato. Through it all thought 



86 A WORKING BASIS 

was steadily advancing. No more interesting 
chapter in history can be found than the 
Alexandrian period when Greek and Oriental 
thought met, contended, and gradually 
merged. Throughout the history of thought 
each generation has left its deposit as surely 
as the overflowing Nile, enriching the soil and 
raising the level. Why must the histories, as 
Bancroft, Schouler, Mosheim, Neander, and 
others be displaced? Not only by reason of 
the accumulating material but also because of 
the changing view-point, not shifting but mov- 
ing on. Advancing thought compels restate- 
ment. 

Evolution, which has turned out to be some- 
thing quite other than what many expected, 
is now defined as ''The sum of changes where- 
by things have come to be as they are." Evo- 
lution is not a creative agency or the pedigree 
of the race, but another name for develop- 
ment, a record of a progressive series of mul- 
tiplying and diversifying forms, a series the 



PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 87 

discovering mind must traverse in the inverse 
order. God is in and throughout His world 
and is discovered by the toiling mind that dil- 
igently seeks Him, whether in upturned ledge, 
the driving storm, the mysteries of life, or 
between the covers of Israel's covenant. 

The various attempts at a graphic pre- 
sentation of the progress of revelation are at 
best pathetic. Distinctions of degree and 
kind, conjectures as to the gradual passing of 
revelation and the increasing dominance of 
reason like an entering wedge into the spirit- 
ual economy, and all similar mechanical de- 
vices are to be rigidly eschewed. It must be 
patent that the Infinite is not shut up to one 
mode of procedure, and that mode the one 
with which we are familiar, else He were no 
longer infinite. It does not follow that be- 
cause certain phenomena in Israel's life are 
not repeated that revelation has ceased. 
Change may well be change in mode and not 
in substance. 



88 A WORKING BASIS 

Instructive is the study of comparative re- 
ligions. The church has long sinde abandoned 
tne view-point of St. Augustine in whose 
*^City of God" we have a wholesale arraign- 
ment of the religious beliefs and of the ethical 
teachers of Greece and Rome. We have 
learned to avoid odious comparisons and to 
see in the several faiths stages in men's ap- 
prehension of God. The missionary in the 
foreign field is teaching us wisdom. Recog- 
nition of other faiths gives us warrant for the 
broad basis of religion, and this renders eas- 
ier by comparison the vindication of the 
claims of Christianity. It is not to Paul's dis- 
advantage, for example, that some of the 
truths set forth by him may have been fore- 
shadowed by Plato. Things arc not true be- 
cause Paul said them : Paul said them because 
they were and are true. The bitter experiences 
through which Israel passed were not mere 
chance or accident. It did Israel good to 
come into contact with the cults of Canaan, 



PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 89 

Persia, and Babylon, and to be forced into 
relations with the several national groups of 
the times. Israel's religion was thereby grad- 
ually purged of dross. The Exile brought 
Israel into contact with Asiatic institutions 
other than their own, and the Greek conquest 
in the fourth century brought in Greek insti- 
tutions and influences. In such social and com- 
mercial intercourse there resulted a reciprocal 
influence. Israel and especially Judaism was 
aroused to greater mental activity; the habits 
of national stagnation were broken; uncon- 
sciously but surely new ideas were either borne 
in or stirred up in the life and thought of the 
people. 

The Old and New Testaments afford a 
splendid example of a gradual and a progres- 
sive revelation. Two points here must be 
borne in mind: — (i) In these records we 
have an expression of the manward side. They 
give man's enlightened apprehension of Di- 
vine things. It has been said truly that God 



90 A WORKING BASIS 

created man in His image and that man re- 
turned the compliment by creating God in 
his. Thus the apparent difficulty in the early 
books need not trouble us. We have no need 
to apologize for God. The crudities are due 
to the imperfections of men's thinking at the 
time. It need not disturb us, for example, if 
the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews did 
not see the message in all the fullness of that 
of Paul. The Sermon on the Mount, a trust- 
worthy though brief account of the discourses 
of Jesus, gives us our nearest approach to the 
ethical content of the Gospel, yet to the last 
Jesus was forced to remind his closest fol- 
lowers of their imperfect vision. (2) We 
must bear in mind the true order of the ca- 
nonical books of the Old Testament. This 
order materially different from that found in 
our English versions, is that given to us by 
the Hebrews themselves, represents the oldest 
tradition and must be noted in all considera- 
tions of the development of IsraePs life and 



PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 91 

thought. 

Likewise in the New Testament we must 
note carefully, so nearly as attainable, the or- 
der in which the several books were com- 
posed. Thus the first witness of the Christian 
Church is Paul and the Gospels are later, the 
Fourth Gospel probably among the last of 
the collection. Indeed, so late as the time of 
Eusebius, ca. 340 A. D., the canonical list of 
the New Testament books was still in dispute. 

(3) Note must be taken also of the char- 
acter of the books of the Old Testament. 
Thus, the so-called historical books were by 
their authors styled prophetic. They were 
didactic in spirit and purpose rather than his- 
torical or scientific. The great purpose of 
the Old Covenant is to admonish, exhort, and 
to emphasize the merciful dealings of God 
with men. The books of the New Testament 
are to be similarly considered. The Pauline 
letters are not formal epistles but familiar let- 
ters written to meet specific occasions. Hence 



92 A WORKING BASIS 

logical structure even when it exists is purely 
subsidiary. Even the Gospels though they 
partake more of the historical character, are 
informal accounts composed for the good of 
the Christian community. They lack the lit- 
erary finish of the later Apologists whose mis- 
sion was to present the cause to the outside 
world. 

A few examples will suffice for illustration. 
The book of Ruth, for example, a marvel in 
its breadth of view and in its tolerant attitude 
toward foreigners, fits without a jar into the 
scheme of the divine training of Israel. The 
son of an orthodox Jew marries a girl from a 
hated race, and this girl becomes a model of 
fidelity and finally appears as an ancestress of 
the royal line and even of the expected Mes- 
siah. The book of Jonah is no longer a fish 
story. The attitude of the writer toward 
Nineveh, Israel's arch oppressor, marks a 
sublime attainment in the nation's develop- 
ment, and more nearly than any other Old 



PROGRESSIVE REVELATION 93 

Testament book approximates the ideals of 
the New. The language of Jesus, '*For the 
hardness of your hearts Moses gave you these 
sayings, but I say unto you,'' marks no formal 
repudiation of the old Covenant, no abroga- 
tion or repeal. The old garment when out- 
grown was gradually put off and the new one 
donned without struggle^ as is always the case 
when there is life and vitality. The record of 
the Testaments is one of gradual growth. In 
the course of canonization our Biblical liter- 
ature underwent a sifting process. What in 
the course of time in the use of synagogue 
and church proved in experience to have most 
of spiritual nourishment, became canonical 
because of its superior fitness. In a sense the 
selection was artificial because the criterion 
was adaptedness to human needs. In another 
sense the selection was divine, for, as in nature 
we discover a divinity revealing itself, so in 
religious literatures, and especially in our Bi- 
blical writings, we recognize God revealing 



94 A WORKING BASIS 

Himself, or at least being revealed, in an ad- 
vancing spiritual creation. Here is one con- 
ception of Paul, another of Hebrews, and an- 
other of the Johannine writers. Each sought 
faithfully to give to his fellows the vision as 
it stood revealed to him. It were better in- 
stead of fruitless endeavors at harmonizing, 
to seek in the resultant of all the foreshadow- 
ings at least of that which is real. 

What further steps there may be for us to 
take, is beyond our power to say, — what man 
is to be as the culmination of spiritual crea- 
tion. We must judge the future by the past. 
In the ancient records we trace an arc of that 
vast circle in whose completing process we al- 
ready divine the scheme of development. 



ON FAITH AND SCIENCE 



id 



^Science is . . . trained and organ- 
ized common senseJ' — Huxley. 

^^Science corrects the old creeds, sweeps 
away with every new perception our infantile 
catechisms, and necessitates a faith commen- 
surate with the grander orbits and universal 
laws which it discloses/^ —Emerson. 



ON FAITH AND SCIENCE 

A CONSIDERABLE series of 
stories by prominent writers 
brings us to the problem — can the 
growing scientific spirit be recon- 
ciled with faith? The challenge of Allison 
Parr — ^'acceptance of authority is not faith" 
— drives Hodder to much heart searching 
and shifting of position. Theron Ware finds 
himself preaching ''cautious and edifying doc- 
trinal discourses" to the regulars at the morn- 
ing service, and "to the evening as- 
semblages, made up for the larger part of 
outsiders, he addresses broadly liberal ser- 
mons, literary in form, and full of respectful 
allusions to modern science and the philoso- 
phy of the day." But when he comes to a town 
where the faithful were ever present, the par- 
son's woes began. The sharp questioning of 
Hope Farwell followed by the treachery of 

97 



98 A WORKING BASIS 

a fat, contented church drives Dan Matthews 
to seek a true ministry and to find it among 
the hills about his old home. Brought face 
to face with critical views on time honored 
dogmas, Robert Elsmere finds in life only a 
horrible nightmare and dies at last a victim of 
his intellectual struggle and anguish. 

Great as are these stories, their heroes get 
stuck in the bark. Caught in the letter they 
miss the spirit. They cannot see the forest 
for the trees, the city for the houses. It is 
possible to get one's mental furniture so 
screwed to the floor that repairs cause dam- 
age. One of the virtues of a trained mind, 
theological or scientific, is a reasonable degree 
of mobility. 

We have first to consider the changing 
character of science. We are wont to capi- 
talize and to include within quotation marks 
and then to rest serene in terms, as "Science," 
"Law," "Electricity" or "Electrical Energy," 
"Conservation," "Inertia," "Inertia is that 



ON FAITH AND SCIENCE 99 

property of a body by virtue of which." 
And these titles are all means wherewith to 
label our ignorance. Our brief observation 
we summarize under a statement and call the 
same a law, or even ''Law." But a few more 
observations or deductions by a keener mind 
than ours have left our term and definition 
stranded high and dry in the dictionary. 
There is no more suggestive shelf in the sec- 
ond-hand store than that labeled ''Science." 
To Descartes the so-called pineal gland con- 
stituted the point of contact between mind 
and body; to another it is the "vestige of an 
aborted eye," "a vestigial sense-organ." The 
anatomist of today modestly declares that its 
function is unknown, and will even acknowl- 
edge that medicine is not yet an exact science. 
The history of such ideas as the circulation of 
the blood, the rotundity of the earth and its 
forward movement in the solar system is 
further exemplification. Evolution has been 
modified by mutation, and the nebular by the 



loo A WORKING BASIS 

plantesimal hypothesis. From Comstock to 
the writers of the American Science Series is a 
far cry and enough to keep us humble. 

Again, we may ask, ^^What is faith?" We 
may begin by determining what it is not. 
And, first, it is not an immutable something; 
it is an attitude, as it were, of mind, an alert- 
ness and readiness with light baggage, as a 
minute-man, to move on. Further, it is not 
a concrete example of the acceptance of a spe- 
cific dogma or creed. It is not the mind or 
that on which the mind has settled, but the 
mode of action, an attitude of our thinking, 
and takes its rise in the fact of our thinking. 
It may be moral: it is also intellectual. Man 
is an integer, and whatever touches upon one 
phase of his personality concerns him entirely 
and throughout. Faith is loyalty to the best 
we know, the best that is within us. Faith is 
progressive and should grow more significant 
with years and wisdom. 

The prime difficulty is one of unsymmetri- 



ON FAITH AND SCIENCE loi 

cal development. The boy enters the Univer- 
sity with a boy's knowledge of science, art, re- 
ligion. He leaves the University with a man's 
idea of science, and art, but still with a boy's 
idea of religion. Comparisons can not but be 
odious — by reason of unequal development, 
the result of unsymmetrical training. Knowl- 
edge added to faith broadens and deepens 
faith. 

Revelation Is not merely a pouring some- 
thing into a receptacle. The receptive mind 
Is not merely passive. As the mountain peaks 
reflect the glory of the rising day while dark- 
ness holds the Intervening valleys, so revela- 
tion Is for him who aspires, seeks, and strives. 
Revelation is not gratuitous but Is granted as 
the price of endeavor. 



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